The Book of Job as a Greek Tragedy Derestored

David T. Stewart

A widely held intellectual tradition asserts that Job is a drama. Typical of this tradition is Kallen who does not define "drama," but rather seeks to impose Western genre traditions on a non-Western work. Job does exhibit evidence of oral performance, dramatic actin, dramatic dialogue within the framework of the Hess-LŸttich model, conflict, and movement of ideas. These elements are necessary but not sufficient conditions to label the book "dramatic." Description of actual discourse phenomena in Job will be more productive in the study of its genre than the application of prescriptive generic models from the Western artistic tradition.

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